Free Sister Mine by Tawni O’Dell Page A

there like an idiot. She rolls it down. The air-conditioning is already blasting.
    â€œYes?” she says.
    This is one of those situations where I don’t like being a woman. A man does a job and he expects to get paid for it; a woman does a job and she feels like she should say thank you for being allowed to do it.
    â€œThat took an hour of my time, not to mention the time it took to drive out here.” I show her the filth on the palms of my hands. “And it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do on a Saturday afternoon.”
    â€œOh, I see. You expect to get paid? Well, of course. I’m sorry. I thought you were just doing a good deed. I thought country people were friendly.”
    â€œWe are. That’s why I haven’t knocked you unconscious and stolen your wallet and your car the way a city person would.”
    She smiles and reaches into her purse.
    â€œFifty,” I tell her.
    She could easily afford two hundred but I know if left to her own discretion, she’s going to give me a twenty.
    I pull up the bottom of my shirt and wipe the sweat off my face, then tie it up into a knot below my bra.
    I look up and find her holding out fifty dollars to me while staring at my midriff.
    â€œDid you get that in the line of duty?” she asks me.
    I follow her gaze to the ragged shiny pink scar on my left side.
    â€œYes,” I tell her. “In the line of duty.”
    I’m not lying. It’s the place where my dad hit me with the claw end of a hammer when I told him I was going to keep my baby.
    We all have our own definitions of duty.

Chapter Five
    M Y HOUSE IS A HOMELY HOME. The barn-red paint job is peeling, and the front porch sags alarmingly. It sits about forty feet from the road and is surrounded by so many trees, including two unruly willows that are twice its height, that it’s very difficult to see and if somebody does catch a glimpse of it they usually think it’s an abandoned outbuilding belonging to a nearby farm.
    The interior consists of two bedrooms, one bath, and a large living room area that extends into a roomy eat-in kitchen.
    I don’t need much square footage, since I’m only one person and don’t plan to become more than one, but I do need a lot of space and that’s why I love my house. Even though it’s relatively small, it has high ceilings and few walls and hardwood floors. Anything that muffles sound makes me claustrophobic.
    As I near my driveway, I’m surprised to see Gimp sitting at the end of it. I could’ve sworn I left him inside with the door closed this morning.
    â€œHey, boy,” I call out my window.
    He raises his gray muzzle and fixes his copper eyes on mine while slowly swishing his tail back and forth across the gravel.
    I got him from a farm twelve years ago when I started working for the Centresburg police and moved back to Jolly Mount.
    I called ahead so the farmer knew I was coming. E.J. came with me. We parked near the barn and sat in the car waiting for him. The next thing we knew a German shepherd mutt—who turned out to be the mother of the litter—came loping toward us on three legs. We’d find out later she’d been hit by a car. A few minutes after that a three-legged black Lab appeared. He’d been caught in a thresher.
    E.J. turned to me and said, “If the farmer comes out on one leg, we’re getting the hell out of here.”
    Afterward, Gimp was the only name we could come up with for the puppy.
    He doesn’t look particularly anxious to get up and walk back down the driveway.
    â€œGive me a break,” I tell him but I go ahead and let the lazy mutt in and give him a lift.
    There’s a car I’ve never seen before parked in front of my house. It has a New Mexico license plate.
    Gimp won’t get out of the car. I have to pick him up and set him back on the ground.
    â€œHave I complimented you lately on your guard dog skills?” I ask him.
    At